


Rescues

by NancyBrown



Series: Straysverse [2]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Character Death Fix, Created Family, Drama, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-09
Updated: 2011-05-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 04:26:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/196863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NancyBrown/pseuds/NancyBrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brought back by Amy but unable to return home, Ianto and Steven attempt to build a new life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: child endangerment, mentions of child abuse, emo as hell, wtfpresenttense  
> Spoilers: TW: CoE, DW: The Big Bang (written before series 6 premiered, mentions the gender of Gwen's baby)  
> Betas: fide_et_spe and humantales  
> Summary: Brought back by Amy but unable to return home, Ianto and Steven attempt to build a new life.  
> AN: Sequel to Strays. Familiarity with that story is not required to read this one. (That one was Ianto/Amy porn. This is what happens next.)
> 
> Livejournal version: <http://nancybrown.livejournal.com/76295.html>

He goes by "Nathan" these days, but Steven forgets to answer to anything save his own name, so they compromise. The other lies are easier: he uses Rhiannon's birth date, he didn't have custody of his son until recently when they lost the boy's mother in the troubles, they're looking for a fresh start somewhere without so many memories.

That last lie is close enough to be true.

Memories have been altered. The mechanism escapes him, and the little he knows rings too much of fairy tales and too little of science to make him believe. Once, there was a princess who waited for the Doctor. Once, the fairy godmother was trapped while the blue castle burned for two thousand years, and the soldier-prince waited for the princess to awaken. Once, the princess dreamed the world back together and brought the dead back to life.

Ianto suspects there's far more to do with space-time irregularities and less with three wishes, but he has no way to confirm the guess. He was a memory, and now he is nothing. Rhiannon didn't recognise him, burst into tears and chased him from her doorstep, shouted at him. Jack and Gwen stared through him like a stranger, and no matter what he did to try to tell them who he was, they didn't hear, didn't see, didn't believe. Ianto left when they tried to shoot him. On the bad nights, he can still close his eyes and see them, side by side, guns out, ready to kill him all over again.

From the little he's been able to pry from Steven, his own mother didn't know his face. As far as those who used to love them know, they are in their graves, and in their graves they must stay. Amy said there were others, that somehow they were drawn to her as Ianto had been, hearing a call in his head across the miles, leading him to the only place he had left to go when all his homes were lost. He didn't ask how many of the rest had dabbled with her as he had done, alone and afraid and humble. She gave him a meal, and a place to sleep, and a child to care for, and the contact information for people who could help.

The Mr Copper Foundation is kind to the newly-raised, offering identities and employment. Ianto is a librarian in a small town he never heard of before. Steven is enrolled in school. It's not a white-picket-fence life, but their flat is clean, and they're both used to waking up to the sounds of the other's nightmares shouted through thin walls. The neighbours worry, but Ianto has explained by refusing to go into detail how Steven's mother "died" and it's enough to forestall inquiries.

They don't talk about how they died, not to each other. It's enough to know, to remember the dark.

The problem with slipping into a new life is that the old one still fits. Ianto runs towards the sounds of shouts and screams before he remembers to run away. He searches news websites and police reports, and hacks into CCTV feeds for fun, looking for the same patterns he once knew. He can't help it, just as he can't help marking articles about UNIT, about rumours coming back from the United States that sound like Jack's doing, about mentions of escaped leopards and gorillas from zoos that don't exist.

"What's a Hoix?" Steven asks him over breakfast.

Ianto thinks. "An alien, from a nasty planet." He helps Steven lie, but he doesn't lie to him if he can help it, not about what happened, not about Father Christmas, certainly not about aliens. He takes a long drink from his coffee mug and tries not to think about the last time he chased a Hoix down a darkened alley, blood racing, chest pounding, exhilarated and terrified. He can't let himself remember the stink of its cooling body, or the cool, wet, grimy surface of the brick wall at his back with Jack's hands desperately scorching Ianto's shivery skin after it almost killed him. "Why do you want to know?"

"You left the computer on."

Ianto glances over. He oughtn't leave his browser open. He ought to use a password. "Sorry."

Steven shrugs and drinks his milk from the bowl. "Will you be home today?"

"Not until late. Warm up the leftovers." His schedule changes every fortnight, and he has to close once a week. The ladies at the library -- and they are all ladies except for him -- do try to make things easier on the single parents but they all take turns. "I'll be home before bedtime. If you pick our next book, I'll bring it home." Every night, they read a story together. Ianto remembers this from the good parts of his own childhood, associates the time with warmth and caring and mugs of cocoa. Steven loves to chat about the stories. It's something to share that's just for them.

Ianto doesn't kiss him on the head, and they rarely hug. From the outside, they seem distant, but on the other hand, Ianto only met the boy a few months ago, and has no idea what the etiquette is for dealing with one's ex-boyfriend's grandson (previously deceased). At best, they are falling into a stable friendship. At worst, neither has anyone else.

Work is brisk, and takes his mind off things he can't change. The local university is headed towards exams, and suddenly the students have remembered there's a library besides their own. Ianto calls home once to make sure Steven has arrived back from school. Around suppertime, there's another influx of students.

"Pardon me," says someone, while Ianto is reshelving, and he looks down to see brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, and a crooked but pleasant smile. "Could I see that one?"

Ianto hands the book over, and the man inspects the spine. "That's the one I need, thanks." He adds it to a stack in his arms.

"Dissertation?"

"Personal research." The man smiles his odd smile again. "Haven't seen you around before."

"I've been working here a month." Ianto is done in this section, and ought to get back to the desk. But his mouth is dry, and his pulse is speeding up, and yes, this man is definitely checking him out. He's not from the university, Ianto thinks, unless he's a mature student. He's at least Ianto's age.

"Richard," says the man, holding out his free hand.

Ianto almost flubs it, but manages to say, "Nathan," just in time.

***

Ten things Ianto knows about Richard:

1\. He's a writer. He's locally famous, and is usually in and out of the library all the time. All the ladies like him and have signed copies of his books. He writes fiction about paranormal phenomena.

2\. He was on a small book-signing tour when Ianto and Steven moved to town. He regrets not meeting Ianto sooner.

3\. He believes in all the alien sightings that people have reported over the last several years, the Daleks, the Cybermen, the planets in the sky, the children speaking in unison, and he thinks the universe is sending a message to the human race.

4\. He's bad at giving head, always managing to scrape with his teeth at the worst time, and he doesn't do penetrative sex at all, but his hands are fucking gifted when they are wanking each other in the back of his car after the library closes. It's like being a teenager again, all messy kissing and hoping not to get caught.

5\. He's a vegetarian, and is considering going vegan but he's not sure he wants to give up proper dairy.

6\. He likes Steven, and apparently does know the etiquette for dealing with his sort-of-boyfriend's ex's grandchild, specifically by bringing video games and letting Steven chat about them to his heart's content. He is careful never to be in a room alone with him "for the look of things, Nathan, people talk in this town."

7\. He was born and raised here. He knows the postman and the woman who owns the grocery, and the police, and everyone knows him.

8\. The "ghost" that came to him and turned into a Cyberman put him in mind of his late mum. Ianto is chopping leeks for dinner when Richard says this, and cuts himself badly.

9\. He is excellent at first aid, even to kissing it better afterwards.

10\. He hates ties, he has no interest in any historical period, especially military-related, and he doesn't listen to any music older than the late 80s. He might possibly be perfect in every way. (Except for the giving head part, but they can work on that.)

***

Etiquette has no advice for figuring out how to put Steven and Richard into the same area of his life. Ianto won't let Richard stay over, and he won't leave Steven alone all night. Two months after they start seeing each other, eight weeks after the first time they leave stains on the upholstery in Richard's car, he invites them both for a weekend at his cottage.

Of course he has a cottage. What respectable writer wouldn't?

"Do you want to go?" It's breakfast again, just Ianto and Steven.

"I dunno. Has he got toys?"

The first thing Ianto has learned about raising a child is when to filter. Richard's toys are absolutely off-limits. "He has a computer. And books."

"Good books?"

"Probably grownup books." Steven makes a face. Homework has been hard lately, and while Ianto's bright, he's not academically inclined and never was. "You can take some toys."

"It's just overnight?"

Ianto nods. "Just one night."

"Mum used to send me to a babysitter."

"What?"

"When Mum wanted to have a man over, or go out, she sent me to a sitter. Uncle Jack watched me once."

And just like that, the world is darker, instead of brightened by the prospect of a whole night with his new lover. "We don't have to go."

"We can go. Is he your boyfriend now?"

Ianto's tongue ties itself. The simple answer is yes, but Ianto's experiences with having boyfriends are limited and peculiar. Again Jack's ghost is in the room with them. "I think he's going to be."

***

There was a real Nathan once. Back in London, back at Torchwood, Ianto's first work friend was named Nathan Reynolds. He'd been at Torchwood for four years, and always had the best stories.

"Did you know," he'd say to Ianto over lunch, "that they caught a sex alien a hundred years ago, and they studied it, and they've been distilling its hormones ever since. They put them in the coffee and take notes about what happens. It's why everybody is shagging everybody else." He took a long deliberate slurp from his cup.

Ianto laughed at the bullshit story, just like he laughed at the bullshit stories about the Doctor. Sure, he worked for UNIT and they protected him in the seventies. Sure, he travelled through time in a blue wooden police box. That was as likely as the alien in charge of one of the departments (everyone claimed it was their own) or that Yvonne's boobs were enhanced with alien technology.

Nathan swore all these stories were true, especially the one about Yvonne's boobs.

When Yvonne had one of her mandatory office parties, and Ianto wound up in the back room with his hands shoved down Larry Marks's pants, and after threw himself in horror at Nathan's knees wondering what the fuck he'd just done, Nathan patted him on the head, and said, "Sex alien." The next day he introduced Ianto to this gorgeous girl he knew in HR who'd just broken up with her fiancé.

The real Nathan had last been seen somewhere around the fifteenth floor. His name was on the monument, listed among the missing because they never found enough of a body that matched his description to be sure.

***

Richard is working on a novel about a sex alien, because he thinks it will sell.

"How can you not believe in aliens?" he asks incredulously over dinner. They've done a homemade pizza thick with cheese and mushrooms and peppers. Steven is picking off the peppers like they are worms, jiggling them as he sets them down side-by-side on his plate, red, yellow and green.

Ianto shrugs. "I see no reason to think these aren't normal phenomena."

"The planets in the sky and the Daleks on the streets weren't normal."

"The papers said there was a release of a toxic chemical into the water supply. We're lucky we just saw planets and robots." Ianto is still proud of that news story. He had to research dozens of neurotoxins to pick the best ones to fit the narrative.

"How did we all see the same things? And the earthquake after?"

He remembers the earthquake, and he remembers after. Jack wasn't back yet, and he and Gwen were cleaning up wreckage in the Hub for what felt like the millionth time, and punch-drunk celebratory "we're not dead, hurrah!" sex had sounded like a much better idea than it turned out to be. He never told Jack, who would have felt left out and wanted to watch. He knows Gwen never told Rhys, as Rhys hadn't come after his bollocks with hedge clippers. He's almost certain the timing wasn't right for Gwen's announcement a month later, but he'll never be able to find out, will he?

"People are suggestible. You tell me that cloud looks like a rhinoceros, that's what I'll see, too."

"What about you?" Richard asks Steven. "You remember talking with all the other kids, don't you?"

Steven's face clouds. "No." He eats the rest of his pizza in silence.

They watch a movie together, and then Steven is tucked in with a book in Richard's guest room, and _finally_ , Richard and Ianto are alone with the night ahead of them. Richard's bedroom is on the second floor, and as long as they're not especially loud, Steven won't hear them.

Ianto gives very good head. He had a fantastic teacher who was patient and expressive, and Ianto is not going to think about him now, not when he's on his knees, not with the scent of Richard's body in his nose, and spit slicking his lips, and Richard making needy noises as he fucks Ianto's mouth. He won't let Ianto fuck him, but he doesn't mind at all if there's a slick finger breaching him as Ianto sucks deep.

Even his come tastes different, and Ianto isn't going to be able to stop comparing, no matter what he does.

Ianto jerks himself between Richard's thighs, then comes on his belly. It's wonderful to be able to lie down, to clean him off with a tissue and drop it and not have to worry about getting home. They kiss softly, no tongues now, and Ianto smiles into the kiss, knowing they'll make love again in a little while, and in the morning before they rise for breakfast.

After some rest, and more sex, Ianto is happily, soundly asleep when he wakes to Richard flinging open the bedroom door, a dressing gown hastily thrown on. Before Ianto can process what's happening, he is already stumbling into his clothes and looking for his gun. He doesn't have a gun. This is a different life.

Steven is somewhere in the house, screaming.

Richard is already in the room with him, lights on, holding his shoulders. "It's all right," he says gently. "It's all right, your dad's here now."

Steven is also not awake yet, and he's looking around wildly for his dad, and Ianto's heart dims when his eyes pass over Ianto and keep looking.

"Steven," he says, sitting on the bed. "It's just a nightmare. You're safe."

"Where are we?"

"We're at Richard's house. You're having a bad dream." He touches Steven's head, not good at comforting him, not knowing how.

Steven starts crying. "I want Mum. I want Dad."

Ianto pulls him into an awkward hug. "I'm here." But he's not the one Steven wants. Richard has moved back to let Ianto comfort his child, but he is watching them both. "Do you think you can go back to sleep?"

"I want to go home." He doesn't mean the flat.

"We'll go in the morning. All right?"

He tucks Steven in again and dries his tears. "It's going to be okay." He doesn't know. But there's nothing else to say, not with Richard watching, not with their other option being cold graves.

He and Richard go back to bed. They don't make love again, not now, not in the morning. Breakfast is chilly and quiet, and Richard keeps watching them like a man working out a puzzle.

***

The world ends when Richard asks to meet him at the restaurant next to the library. They haven't spoken much in the past few days, though they shagged in the car last night, a quick break, hands with no hearts attached.

"If you're in trouble, you can tell me," Richard says. "I don't think you've hurt him. He's not afraid of you at all. But he needs to go back to his real family."

Ianto sits back, picturing Jack and Alice. On days like today, he hates everything that his life ever was or will be. "I am his family. Richard, you're talking nonsense."

"Nathan and Steven Goodwin don't exist. I checked on you. Did you know you don't appear on a single website, newspaper, or any record at all that I could find before a few months ago?"

"Would you like me to show you his birth certificate?" It's forged. Mr Copper's people do good work, though not as good as Ianto used to do.

"He doesn't know you. When he called out for his dad, he looked right through you."

Ianto smiles uneasily. "I told you. His mother had custody."

"His mother never existed. Not the name you said. Steven's description matches a few missing boys, but the pictures are wrong, unless you abducted him when he was small." Richard is speaking quietly, but with the same fervent honesty he uses to talk about what he wrongly thinks UNIT does.

"I didn't abduct him." Steven had followed Amy's beacon and found her first. She was the one who suggested they travel together. "This isn't funny anymore."

He's playing for time now. He won't let himself think his heart is breaking at all. Surely he hasn't been stupid enough to fall for someone again, not so soon. Didn't he learn the last time?

Richard lets out a breath. "He doesn't resemble you, or talk like you. Sweetheart, it doesn't look good." He is so fucking focused on appearances in this small town where everyone is always looking at everyone else. Even now, people are watching them. For their sake, Ianto gives Richard a warmer smile and tells him the largest lie he ever composed while pondering that same problem.

"Between you and me, and don't you dare ever tell him I said this, sometimes I wonder about that. His mother wasn't exactly the Virgin Mary when we dated. But I need to do right by him. Someone should." Richard bites his lip, and Ianto says, "Would you rather I tell you something incredible? Is that what you're looking for? Maybe he and I were killed by aliens and brought back by a time-travelling girl named after a lake. Maybe I used to hunt aliens for a living but now I'm invisible to everyone who ever knew me. Maybe all the things you think about aliens are true, except you get the Blowfish and the Sontarans mixed up." He intended for the words to be joking, but he can hear the snide tone coming from his own mouth.

So can Richard. "Don't make fun of me."

"You're accusing me of kidnapping my own son. What do you want me to do?" His voice breaks at the end. It's all mad, when he says the whole thing out loud. It would be easier to be mad, to have made up everything with the 456 in his head while he runs off with someone's child. He wishes. Oh, how he wishes.

Richard is appeased, a bit, and mumbles an apology by insisting on buying lunch, and Ianto makes an appearance of forgiving him, giving him a quick, scandalous, public kiss before they part.

When Richard's car pulls away, Ianto doubles back to his own instead of going into the library. He has enough time to pack before Steven gets home. He drives to the school and picks Steven up at the gate.

He allows himself a moment to consider he may be overreacting, that Richard won't take this further, that by making this decision he will only be confirming the suspicions. Then he thinks about what will happen if he's wrong.

"We have to move, tonight."

Steven's face scrunches up like he's going to cry. "Why?"

Because I was stupid. Because I let myself get close to someone. Because I wanted more than I'm ever going to have again. "The police are going to come take you away from me, and because we're us, they can't take you back to your mother."

Ianto wishes they could. He'd drive the boy himself if Alice would open her door, but she sees a stranger instead of her son. The universe has been edited, and the pieces are put together wrong. The dead may as well be ghosts. "Because we're us" is the reason neither one can ever go home.

Rain patters in light beads and then in great splashes, distorting the world around them. Steven stares out the window as Ianto drives. They will drop these names like leaves. The car will have to be sold, records will be much harder to fake a second time around without the help of the Foundation. They'll make do.

***

Richard Howard has been writing stories since he was seven years old, scribbling in notebooks, typing on his first computer, handing in creative writing projects for extra marks, always writing. He saw his first alien when he was ten. It looked like a giant fish, and his mum smacked him for telling lies, but Richard has always believed.

His books don't sell as much as everyone in town thinks they do. They consider him a minor celebrity, bringing some good fame to their home, overwriting that tawdry story about that one Royal Cousin who was found shacked up here with that hussy, do you remember? Richard's famous (they think) for a much better reason, and no-one is really that up in arms about the gays anymore, especially the rich ones sitting on pots of money from the bestsellers they write. Richard is both happy and dejected that no-one but him knows what "mid-list" means. Auntie Clara made it big in textiles and left him enough to write at his ease about things that are much bigger and more important than the town where everyone knows him.

When Nathan is missing the day after their talk, Richard spends hours going back and forth in his mind what to do. The boy, whatever his real name is, may be in danger, but enough people in town have seen Richard and Nathan together that this will turn into a ten-year scandal easily enough. Everyone will assume Nathan's a paedophile.

The thought that it might be true is what spurs Richard to the police.

***

They stick to the dirtier sort of hotels, where the desk clerks take pound notes and offer no questions for Ianto's story about travelling to visit his son's sick grandmother. He needs new identification, needs a new story, but with every mile they put between them and the lives they had to abandon, he feels stretched thinner and thinner. If he was alone, he might go back, he might drive off the edge of the road, he might drink himself to death, he might end his existence another way, because this is no life at all, not separate from everyone he's ever loved.

He's not alone.

Steven is crawling deeper into himself every day, and Ianto finds this is what worries him most. The boy needs food, and shelter, and safety, but he also needs security, and friends, and someone to spend time with him, and schooling. As they drive, Ianto makes up games with words, and he jollies Steven into playing them until both voices are cracking.

By the third day, he admits he doesn't know where they are going, he doesn't know what they are going to do. They only have so much money.

They can go back to the Foundation, but their reception will at best be chilly: did he honestly throw away the kindly-offered fresh start for the sake of a few handjobs in the backseat of someone's car? The Foundation is unlikely to offer help a second time, not now. Worse, when they first went, with Ianto's pride foul-tasting in his mouth, the well-meaning staff kept asking questions about his intentions towards this boy whom he admitted he'd never met before. If they go back now with the accusations following, Ianto is certain the Foundation will politely and firmly take Steven away. The sane, logical part of him knows that would be best for both of them.

Sanity and logic have never really been Ianto's strength in making decisions. He can stare backwards at those who've been hurt, even killed, because he did his thinking with his heart instead of his head, and it's still not enough to sway him. Too many what-ifs compete for his attention. What if the Foundation places Steven in a home where he's abused or worse? What if Steven takes this abandonment as his last, and becomes another lost soul, unable to trust anyone? What if Ianto isn't allowed to see or contact him ever again? Sometimes, when Steven is sticky with sweat from playing hard all day, Ianto gets traces of a foreign, dazzling scent that bypasses mere memory and pierces straight through him. Part of this child's DNA was forged in the 51st century. He is a tiny, precious reminder of someone Ianto will never stop loving. How can he be expected to let go?

He watches Steven sleep in another nameless hotel room, and if the dead could cry, he would.

***

The rumours follow Richard home. His friends and neighbours still nod and smile at him, but now they're wondering about Nathan, wondering what happened, where he and that boy went. Richard can't bear to go by the library, and spends his days writing. He gives the sex alien a new lover, and if that lover has blue eyes and a Welsh lilt, then maybe the critics will give Richard's book a second glance: Tied to the Mysterious Child Kidnapping.

His stomach hurts when he thinks about it. He's not a drinker. Perhaps he should start.

The police have been by twice to question him. He gladly showed them the guest room. They have already looked into the abandoned flat in town. When the knock comes on his door, he expects they're back for another round.

Richard opens the door to the most charming smile he's ever seen.

***


	2. Chapter 2

***

The weather is changing, and all Ianto's allergies are happy to describe every pressure difference. Some days are so thick and grey, he thinks he must still be dead, but red eyes and a runny nose are sure signs he's in the land of the reluctantly living.

They have come to London, although it is exorbitantly expensive, because Ianto knows the places where he can purchase false names with the last of their money. Not all the immigrants to Britain, from other countries or other planets, want to live with their old identities. Torchwood kept track of the gatekeepers, the paper-peddlers who could open doors. By the end of things, when it was just the three of them left, the best they could do (Jack said) was to make sure there weren't too many unknown visitors, that the alien underworld self-policed the regular difficulties amongst newcomers to the area. Now they are the newcomers, Lloyd and Christopher Fellowes.

He works in a shop for very little. Steven has started at a new school, though he's behind in everything, and they have to sit together at the table every night until it's half-past late, doing his homework and catching him up.

They've been in their tiny flat for a week when Ianto sees the bill posted. "Feeling lost? Life not what you expected when you got back to it? Contact Amy's Friends." There's a number.

***

The handsome man has friends with him, and they make Richard's dining room look tiny as he finds seats. It was cosy before, he thinks, just right for two people and perhaps a child, and then he pushes that thought away again.

"You're not with the police," he says. Behind him, one of the women has made herself at home, rummaging through his kitchen for the makings of tea.

"We work with them from time to time, but no, we're not on their payroll." He's American. The man reaches into his wallet and pulls out a photograph. He stares for a moment longer than a policeman would, before handing it to Richard like something valuable.

"The report came over the wire," says the second woman, the one who's sitting with them at the table. She's got a friendly, gapped grin that makes him want to share. "You reported a child missing, possibly endangered."

Richard looks at the snap. It looks a lot like the boy who spent the night a month ago. He takes out his own mobile, and searches for a picture he took of Nathan and Steven. "This was them."

The man takes the mobile, and then passes it to the woman. They both shake their heads.

The second man is standing behind the woman's chair. He's thin, and young, and he looks like he's had too many arguments in his life. He takes the mobile and looks hard at the snap. "I'm telling you, it's the same child. And I think I've seen that bloke somewhere before."

"On a 'Wanted' poster, maybe," says the handsome man. "I don't see it, Albert. I think you read the name, and it's put the idea in your head." The woman nods in agreement, and she places a gentle hand on the man's. She has a wedding ring, Richard notices, but he doesn't.

Richard looks at the photograph again, the old one. "It looks like Steven to me, if that helps." He's swept with a wave of pity for these people. They're chasing a missing child. Regrettably, part of him thinks he could work that into a plot. Abduction by aliens, or faeries, or something. The Invisible Boy.

"I think I would know," says the American, and that says family, and grief, in giant letters. He looks back at Albert. "Are we done here?"

Richard says, "I hope you find him."

The woman smiles sadly. "He died."

"I'm sorry." The man nods, and they look like they're going to leave, but the woman in the kitchen has brought them all tea. She's pretty, tight braids framing a sweet face, and he thinks he might have to make a character who looks like her.

"What do you do?" she asks, putting in sugar just the way he likes.

Richard gets down his most-recently published book, and he ignores the expressions of amusement from the others. Not everyone is into the paranormal, and he's used to that. "Nathan said he didn't believe any of this stuff, either," he says, as she flips kindly through the novel, a thriller about aliens who live amongst humans, abducting and eating the homeless until the hero brings them to justice. It's not his best plot, but he's fond of the supporting characters and intends to give them their own story. "Right before he left, he joked about how he and Steven were killed by aliens and brought back to life."

The American's face is suddenly sharp. The woman with the gapped teeth says, "That's an odd joke to make."

"He was teasing me."

She takes the mobile again and stares at the photograph of Nathan and Steven. "I don't recognise him. Jack?" The American checks again, but it's with the same flat stare.

They take down information. This might be relevant to their other inquiries, the woman says, always with that same encouraging smile.

It's only when Richard tells them Nathan's birthday that the American loses his absent, hurt expression. "Say that again?"

***

Amy's Friends meet in a church hall twice a month. Ianto considers leaving Steven at home, but he's as involved in this as Ianto is. If there are other children, perhaps Steven can find a friend. He desperately needs one.

Ten people show up to drink weak tea and nibble stale biscuits. Six have met before, two others are new. Since they started meeting, they've had a maximum of twenty at once, but when newcomers discover they don't have any more answers than Amy or the Foundation did, they drift away again. There have been suicides. Ianto can't blame them. He'd be dead now if he didn't have someone to look after. There are, he notices, no other children, though he is told there were two little girls, briefly. Holly and Lilly. No-one knows where they've gone. If there were other children brought back by Amy's dream, they have since been placed by the Foundation, or they died from want of care or from despair.

One woman takes notes. "The Foundation has records," she says, tucking her dark hair behind her ear. "But I think it's nice if we know who we were." Her name used to be Sally Coke, but she's called Anne these days. After their second meeting, Ianto considers asking her out. He wants so much to connect with someone, have someone. He doesn't know how the others, the ones who don't have anyone with them, manage to survive.

He helps her clear up used paper cups and plates at the end of the meeting, but he sees Steven waiting patiently in his own folding chair, and instead Ianto thanks her for answering his questions, and he takes Steven home. Steven has already lost two lives due to Ianto's fuckups.

They skip the third meeting.

***

Amy's not in when the knock comes on their door. Rory has to seat the strangers, see the confusion on their faces. He's used to confused, lost people following her home, risen like dandelions from the cold winters of their undone deaths. She brought him back from the dead more than once. He can't object.

The dead normally don't travel in SUVs.

"What kind of people come back?" the American asks, the tall one, _Call me Jack_ , he'd said with a smile Rory didn't believe but remembered. He has two thousand years of memories that aren't his packed inside his brain, and sometimes, it's enough to make him doubt his own sanity. He's seen a copy of this face before in a lifetime that never was.

Rory sketches in the air concepts for which he only has the most rudimentary words. "The Doctor said time was rewritten with Amy's memories, the whole world, the whole universe. But we were living in multiple realities, and we think," he flashes his eyes to Jack, "that is, I've speculated, some of the timelines overlapped, and some diverged, and they were edited back together like a movie."

The woman beside him says, "Take bits of film from one part, glue them to another."

"Exactly."

"Timeline fusion," says Jack, and there's a sorrow on his face that makes Rory pull back. "In our reality, they died, and it's not compatible with a reality where they lived."

"It's more than that," says Rory. "The crack, it pulled people in and wiped them from existence entirely. You didn't just die, you never existed, even in the memories of people who knew you."

"But we remember."

"You don't recognise them, though, do you?" This is Amy, standing in the doorway. Her hair is shorter than it used to be, and her round face tighter, but she's still the most beautiful woman Rory has ever met. "They all go home before they come to me, but nobody recognises them."

"I do," says the man standing in Jack's shadow. "But I never met either one, and I didn't know about them until recently."

"No memories to erase," says the fourth member of their team. "I knew about them both."

Amy says, "One of the women I met said it's like being a ghost inside your own life, trying to talk to the people you love, but no-one can hear you."

Rory remembers long, lonely stretches of time, decades spent with just the Pandorica for company. He remembers being ageless, deathless, friendless. He looks at Jack.

Jack says, "How do we find them?"

***

Anne asks him out for coffee, and he agrees. He's expecting a come-on, is working on his gentle let-down. Instead, she just wants a listening ear.

"And I told him, 'It's me, honey. Don't you know me? We had our honeymoon on the Isle of Man,' and he shouted at me and told me to get out." Her face is wet with tears. She had kids. They didn't know her either.

"My sister did the same thing." She'd thought he was mocking her, thought he was hitting her up for money with a cruel scam. He drinks his bad coffee. He'd give a lot for it to be laced with Retcon, to forget absolutely every day of shit since he first moved to London. No Torchwood, no Lisa, no Jack, just a do-over from the word go.

"Steven's lucky to have you."

"Christopher," he corrects her, though he's not used to calling the boy by the new name. Steven is too quiet these days. He doesn't play with the children at his new school. He doesn't talk much to Ianto.

Sometimes Ianto thinks he ought to take Steven back to the Foundation, and have them find him a proper home somewhere. Give him to someone who understands children, who can make a new place for him instead of expecting him to live on the outskirts. He reads the pain in Anne's eyes, recalling a time when she was called Sally, when she was a mum to two little girls who no longer recognise her face. She wants to be needed, to be loved. She meant to ask the lost girls to stay with her until they could reach the Foundation, but they vanished like smoke before she could. She takes a long drink of coffee when she tells him, and he sees how thin her own life is stretched, how she is also ready to snap like a string.

When she doesn't invite him back to hers, he understands, and discovers he's disappointed even though he couldn't have accepted.

He walks back home, half-daydreaming. He pictures Anne, spread out and lovely on a cream-coloured duvet. She will be warm, and soft, and smell of the light floral perfume she always wears. Her heart will speed up under his hand, placed between her breasts as he leans in for a long kiss. He won't think about three-headed monsters slavering against the glass walls of their poisoned tanks. She won't think about brilliant Christmas stars that shoot death. He will slide inside of her like he is melting. She'll call him by her husband's name when she comes, fingernails clawing into his sides. He will think of nothing at all.

It's better this way.

Steven sits in the one chair they have, staring out the window. Ianto sits as close as he can on the broken-down sofa. His old flat, back when he was alive, was nothing much, but he recalls it as a palace compared to this. Steven had lived in a nice house in a good neighbourhood, and now he has enough to eat and clothes to wear, and that's it. Last week, walking back from the shop, they passed a man Steven said looked exactly like his dad, his real dad. Steven pulled away from Ianto and ran up to him, but the man kept walking. Steven's barely spoken since then.

"Tell me," Ianto says. He reaches out and places a hand on the child's thin shoulder. He's fading, it's the only word that seems right, like a bulb gone dim, like a shirt washed too many times.

"When are you going to leave?"

"I'm not. I don't work again until the day after tomorrow."

Steven shakes his head no. "You have to move because of me. We had to leave because Richard thought you were hurting me. If you didn't have me, you could go somewhere else. You could get a good job, and not worry about sending me to school. You could get married. Anne likes you."

He puts on a comforting smile he doesn't feel. "You don't need to worry about me, Christopher."

"Steven. I don't like the name Christopher."

"All right."

"You're not my dad. Why are you taking care of me?"

"Because someone has to." It's off-hand, a joke, but the hurt in Steven's face, reflected in the dim light against the window, makes him regret the words instantly. He doesn't know the right ones to say.

"You should go."

Ianto takes the child's arm and pulls him as gently and firmly as he can to the sofa. He is no good at this. Steven is right. He'd be better off with almost anyone. But Ianto knows he's too selfish to let go. He wraps his arms around the boy, mindful of how much Steven is growing, how he'll need new clothes again soon. Steven allows the hug.

"I'm not leaving you. I'm not going to abandon you. You and I are all we have left of our old lives." He places a kiss on Steven's hair.

"Your old life made you sad. You said so."

"Did I?"

Steven nods.

"Then I suppose it's time to find a new life, yeah? A better one. And I want you there with me when I do." He starts picturing it, a real fresh start, an honest clean slate. They'll move to America, or Canada, somewhere they're unlikely to ever run into anyone they know and deal with that sharp pain ever again, somewhere the people will hear "British accent" and not know the difference. They'll find a suburb, not so big that they're lost, not so small that everyone knows everyone else, and Steven will go to a decent school and not leave it this time, and Ianto will find someone to be a good stepdad or stepmum.

To do all this, they'll need more money than Ianto is making. Their new dream means he'll have to find a better job with longer hours, or else perform a bit of illegal tinkering based on the skills he learned with Torchwood.

Thinking about it more, he decides the better job can wait until after they have the money.

***

There are hundreds of them.

Horror hits Jack over and over, in unexpected waves. The TARDIS was destroyed, and remade, and the universe cracked, and was stapled back together, and somehow hundreds, maybe a thousand people slipped back through into lives that had no room for them. The Mr Copper Foundation has records for everyone in Europe who's come to them, and God alone knows how many there are in other places. Jack thought he had enough of the dead rising, but apparently not.

It's like reading obituaries in reverse: _Edward Jones died 3 May, 2007, and came back to life approximately 26 June 2010. He is settled in Sussex._

Not all of the records have the old names. Many of the returned abandoned theirs long before they found a way here. Amy sends them when she can. Others have been located through careful, targeted searching. There are places where the truly homeless wash up again. Another horror: one of the newest patients out on Flat Holm is in these records, not Rift detritus at all.

Amy remembers the man and the boy. They arrived almost at the same time, and she sent them off together. The Foundation has what could be their file. But the records lead right back into the identities of Nathan and Steven Goodwin, and they have not made contact with the Foundation since they fled.

Albert comes in with coffee from the machine; there are many things Albert doesn't do, and each one is a little reminder that Jack cannot ever replace people, only find new people to care about. Gwen and Lois have returned to Cardiff, but he needs Albert's eyes. This isn't Torchwood business.

"Thanks," Jack says, going back to his reading.

"Where to next?"

Jack flips through reports, and doesn't answer. He's looking for ghosts Amy says he can't see, and he won't let himself believe until he does. The little hope he had not been able to squelch is dying all on its own. Perhaps there are people returned from the dead, but the pair he's chasing now aren't the ones he wishes, and even on the million-to-one chance that they are, he has no way to find them. This _was_ "next," and Jack is running out of other options. Just like before.

As Albert sits down across from him, kind in his silence, Jack closes his eyes and tries to think around the reopened griefs.

He can trade on the last of his authority and start a manhunt, though anyone with enough motivation to stay under the radar can find a way to hide. A quiet but lucrative trade exists in buying and selling false identities for fugitives foreign, domestic, and extraterrestrial, and Jack is one of the few officially-sanctioned individuals who knows what resources for the last group are available for the right price.

Once upon a time, so did his secretary.

***

There's a trick. Tosh showed him how to hack into systems: banks, stocks, businesses, government and private and international entities that straddled the two. Take what won't be missed, a few pounds here, a dollar there, but do it in bulk from thousands of accounts, and hide the dummy accounts by stealing from them as well. Transfer and hide and then transfer again until there's a web of activity with you at the centre, a fat little spider. Don't be greedy. Pick a sum, an odd number, and the moment you reach it, quit taking. Transfer funds back and then again once more. When his life was made up of falsifying records, hiding corpses, and lying to the population at large, the occasional funnelling of funds didn't register as a tremor on his moral compass.

He chooses seventy-three thousand pounds twenty-five.

In two days, he has a little over fifty thousand. Parts of his brain that have grown sluggish over the last year are waking up again, excited by the new game. Steven seems more animated this week, chatting about what he wants to do, where they're going to go. He has extracted a promise from Ianto that they will have a puppy. At tuck-in, they are reading _The Plague Dogs_ though Ianto is beginning to regret the choice.

Ianto sets his old life to rest as he collects their escape money. He buys flowers for Lisa's grave, the false one here in London rather than the real one buried under tonnes of debris in Cardiff. He sends more to Tosh's. He doesn't sign either bouquet. He sends a stuffed animal, a little red dragon, to Gwen's address for her daughter. His own family would have received the payout from his death some time ago, and an extravagant gift will only invite questions about stolen goods.

There's no good way to tell someone, "I will love you forever even if you don't remember who I am." He doesn't send anything else.

The work on their passports is shoddy, he thinks with an eye well-suited to forgery, but he lacks the resources to do better. He purchases two tickets to New York. They can go anywhere from that point, or settle near the city if they choose. Ianto's never been outside of Europe and he thinks it might be nice to travel, taking photographs of Steven against the backdrop of famous monuments as they both pull faces for the camera. Fifteen years from now, when Steven brings home some girl or boy to meet his dad, they can bring out the photos as proudly as they would a baby book: this is where our life together really started.

Ianto heads to work with a smile on his face. When he comes home and checks the dummy account he bought the flowers with, he finds it frozen. With a sinking feeling, he checks the other accounts. Four have been suspended, though not the one he used to buy their tickets. That leaves two accounts with less then three thousand pounds between them.

It'll have to be enough. He walks to the banks, and with a nervous smile for the tellers, closes both accounts. No, he hasn't any problems with the bank's service. Yes, his record shows he's been a member for seven years. He and his son will be moving to America. He has a job offer there.

There are police cars already outside when he returns to the block. Ianto keeps walking, smiling amiably when one of the policemen catches his eye. He doesn't run. He does regret the loss of the last of Steven's toys as he walks casually to the school and signs Christopher out for a doctor's appointment.

"You're supposed to send a note," says the receptionist, as she calls down to the classroom.

"Sorry," Ianto says. "I forgot."

***


	3. Chapter 3

***  
Part Three  
***

"Sharky!"

Sharky's primary head snaps up at the jovial voice. His secondary head is under his shirt today. Humans. Living among them is more bother than it's worth sometimes. He sees a human-looking being, though if half the stories are true, Harkness is no more human than Sharky is. "Captain. I thought we weren't due for an inspection for another two months."

"You know me, always interested in what's going on with you. I heard the Forbani are getting a foothold in Croydon." His bright eyes are sharp.

Sharky is good at not looking guilty. He'd be dead or handed over to the Judoon years ago if he were likely to wear his feelings on his primary face. His secondary one is free to be worried. "I talked to them about the butcher's shop. No more eating humans, not even on feast days."

"I want them shut down if they do. We understand each other? The last thing anyone needs is UNIT stomping around the place. You've got nice, hard-working people, keeping their heads down. Good salt-of-the-home-planet types. Don't make things bad for them. Deal with the butcher. I'm asking nicely."

"Yes, Captain."

It's an arrangement, not perfect. Sharky's not the only fish in this sea, but he's got tentacles (literal and figurative) in every area of extraterrestrial immigration to Great Britain. Want a new start on this backwater planet, without showing your neck to the Shadow Proclamation or getting shot by one of the big anti-alien groups? For a modest sum, available on a loaned basis ("interest" is a concept Sharky and his fellow greasers-of-the-rails-of-life have gladly embraced since arriving in London), you can have paperwork under the name Bob Smith, the locations of others of your kind so you can join them or avoid them, and protection from some of the hazards of city life, like being eaten by your blood enemy.

Way back when, Torchwood London was a thorn in the sides of the local aliens, always raiding their nests and shipping people off-world. Sharky still gets cold sweats remembering the detentions and dissections. Torchwood Cardiff wants regular reports, self-enforced rules, and an annual census, with a threat to return to the old way of running things if the new system breaks down. It's an improvement, medicine instead of poison, though it still tastes bad.

"I need you to put out the word. I'm looking for these two humans." He shows Sharky a photograph. "The adult could be familiar with our procedures and may come to an unofficial guy like you for new identification. Find out who he used, find out where he is."

Sharky takes a long, hard look. "Lloyd Fellowes. I don't know his old name. He came to me a few months ago. Just paid me back the rest of his loan." The man had acted as though he knew Sharky, but one of Sharky's talents is never forgetting a face. Except … He felt sick after seeing the guy, needing a break, and Sharky never rests on the job. His secondary head had a headache. At the time, he figured the man was from some psychic species that could pass for human.

"Where is he now?" The Captain's expression doesn't change, but there's something about him that scares Sharky.

"What's he done? I don't want my people getting into trouble."

"Let me worry about that."

Sharky pulls up the current address he has for Fellowes. There's a note attached to the file. "They're moving overseas. No forwarding address. You might still catch them if you go now." He doesn't have to know where they're going once they're out of his territory. Let the Area 51 clods deal with them.

The Captain takes the information. "If other humans come to your door, I want names. Got it?"

"I got it."

Oh yes, he's got plenty, he thinks, watching the Captain flounce out. Sharky's got the contact numbers for some of the less-official members of the alien-hunting and alien-abetting culture. He doesn't do all the work himself when it comes to wrangling the locals while avoiding scrutiny from the government. Lloyd Fellowes just bought himself extra trouble.

There's no thanks from the Captain, but the annual review gets pushed back three months, giving Sharky time to explain things to the Forbani, using smaller words this time. Soylent Green is off the menu.

***

Jack bluffs his way past the police tape and into the flat. There's been no physical crime, though the forensics team is examining the two small beds and the ratty sofa for DNA traces. The real investigators are the computer experts. They hunch over the second-hand laptop for evidence of a complex cyber-theft with Toshiko's fingerprints all over it.

The pair were here less than a day ago. There aren't any photographs, but Jack sits down on the bed that could be Steven's, looking at the books and the few toys. The room that could be Ianto's has nothing personal in it, and Jack can't trust himself even to recognise the scent on the cheap sheets, but the bathroom holds the same toothpaste and shampoo brands he used to see every morning, and the cups and plates in the kitchen are lined up neatly as soldiers.

"You were right," says the tech working on the laptop. Jack stares at him, confused until he remembers his story that the suspect was attempting to hack into Torchwood files.

"Show me." He walks up behind the technician, and views the recovery, his stomach a hard stone. The crack had been rerouted through false ISPs, but an attempt had been made to log in to Mainframe's newly-rebuilt system using credentials which Jack had personally de-authorised.

He scans the rest of the information they find in the recent history. Airline tickets. Flowers. A red toy dragon. Breadcrumbs leading Jack back to the same place, the impossible place. If the person who did all these things isn't Ianto, he's made an extraordinary effort to pretend.

Jack calls Gwen with numb fingers.

"If they can't leave the country," she says sensibly, "where would they go?"

***

Think. Think. The police have the computer, which means they have all the purchases. They'll know about the trip. Ianto drops the tickets into a bin, and with a twinge, he also drops their now useless passports. Lloyd and Christopher no longer exist. He won't miss them.

Tonight there's a meeting for Amy's Friends. Did he ever contact any of them via email? Did he ever visit a website? Terror clouds his thoughts, and he's holding Steven's hand too tightly. No. They can go to the church hall, have tea and biscuits and time to plan. He can ask Anne to watch Steven, because the police only want Ianto. But if he does, he'll never see the boy again. Ianto will vanish, or be taken into custody, and Steven will be in the care of someone else.

"I'm running out of ideas," he confesses over dinner at a restaurant far from their most recently-vacated home. "We have some money. We can probably cross into Ireland. I can find us new identities, and we can try to go to America. Or Australia. You can have a pet kangaroo."

Steven smiles, but it's wan, distant. He's stopped believing. "Okay."

Ianto shrivels a little more inside. Bad enough he has completely ruined his own chance at a new life -- twice! -- but he's dragging this child down with him. Steven will be better off with Anne, with anyone. Send him back to the Foundation, send him back to Amy, send him into care, he'll still have a chance.

Sitting back in the booth, Ianto orders more coffee for himself, some ice cream for Steven, wonders how to say, "I know I promised I would never leave you, but right now, you'd be better off raised by wild dogs than by me."

Unable to look at the boy any more, he shuts his eyes. He thinks about Lisa, and about wishes. If this is a fairy tale, he gets three, and he's spent them all long ago: wishing not to die at Canary Wharf, wishing to find Lisa amongst all the rubble and screams, wishing for a reason to live again when everything went wrong. Since returning to this shell of an existence, he's wished for a purpose, and found himself with a child he's terrible at raising, wished idly for a lover, and found wet Richard.

He ought to leave the wishing to the fairy tale princess. She's better at this than he is.

"Tell me," he says at last. "Tell me what you want. Tell me where you want to go, what you want to do. I'm no good at this. I can run and hide, but you should have a home. I'll gladly go to prison if it means you have a roof over your head, and someone to read you stories at night." He knows it's true as he says the words. Steven was a duty, and a link to Jack, but Ianto has spent months convincing the world this boy is his son, and while he doesn't know how that ought to feel, not really, he knows that if he has to cut off his own arm to protect Steven, he'll do it.

He wonders if Amy had any inkling, when she first suggested they leave together.

"I want to go home." His voice is thick from ice cream, thick from trying not to cry. He's died, he's lost his home, he's had to run for his life and walk across half the country alone. (Possibly not alone. He refuses to talk about his journey to find Amy, and he has a lot of nightmares.) All this, and he is just a little boy of not quite eleven years.

Ianto wishes he could do better by Steven, wishes for him to be happy again instead of despondent, wishes more than anything for him to be safe and home and loved.

"All right," Ianto says, leaving some notes on the table for the meal and taking Steven's hand. "All right. We'll go home."

***

There's a new face at the meeting tonight. Sally smiles, and shakes his hand. "I'm Anne. Welcome to Amy's Friends."

The man is thin, and young. He scans the faces in the small crowd, but seems not to find what he's looking for. "Albert," he says. "The Mr Copper Foundation sent me. You're some of the strays they've helped into new lives, yes?"

Sally frowns. "Why are you here?"

"I'm looking for a man and a little boy, but I don't see them."

She laughs bitterly. "That's not unusual."

"It may be. What did your name used to be, Anne? I may be able to help you as well."

***

The train goes to Bath, Bristol, and Cardiff. They get off at the first stop. Steven wants to see his mother again one more time, and Ianto can't blame him. They'll visit her, and they will go to visit Rhiannon, and then they will leave this place behind them. Steven picks flowers from gardens they pass as they walk; what's another theft among all those they've committed so far?

He's crying by the time they reach his house, and Ianto brings him into a hug, lets him sob on his collar. Steven is trembling. The last time he was here, his mother screamed at him to leave.

"It's going to be all right. I'm here. I'll always be here."

Steven wipes his nose and rings the bell. There's no answer.

She's not home.

"We can wait," says Ianto. From a few doors down, one of the neighbours looks out, unknowing. It's a dark magic, Ianto thinks, and the fairy tale version of events is the true one after all.

Alice walks up the pavement. It has to be Alice. Something about the set of her face reminds him so strongly of Jack that his own heart is cracking again. "Sorry, can I help you?" She's brittle, specifically not looking at Steven. Maybe it's her perception of him, perhaps she simply doesn't like looking at children anymore. Ianto's thoughts stutter and stumble on an idea just out of reach.

Steven lets go of Ianto's hand. He's going to call her Mum. She's going to start screaming.

He says, "These are for you." He gives Alice the flowers, bent and wilted. She stares at him.

"Thank you."

He smiles. "Come on, Dad. We have to go."

Alice nods at Ianto, and then frowns, like she's trying to remember something. "Why did you give me flowers?" she asks Steven, again not quite looking at him. The idea turns over in Ianto's mind, like a tumbler in a lock.

"Do you know what a perception filter is?" he asks her suddenly. "Did Jack ever take you on the invisible lift?"

Her face is blank now, with a twitch at her father's name. "Get out."

"It was the TARDIS. Amy brought us back because of the TARDIS, but she said the crack wiped memories. I think whatever happened, they must have combined. That's why you can't see us for who we are, no-one with a memory of us can. We've got a perception filter on us. Alice, this is your son." It's the answer, it has to be, the crazy words spilling out into truth.

She backs away from them. "Get out of here, both of you. My son is dead. I watched him die. I'll call the police."

If the police come, he will lose even this. "Alice … "

"Mum, please."

"Go!" She's shouting again, crying, and he wants to help her. How long did she scream at Steven before he ran off in tears last time?

"If you see Jack, tell him." He takes Steven's shoulder and they hurry off while Alice breaks down into sobs, bent over on her front step.

***

The ticket agent recognises the photograph. Jack doesn't have time to pick up Albert before he is racing the train to Cardiff. A man and a little boy. Jack won't know them, can't know them, but surely he can narrow it down. This has to work.

He practically jumps out of his car when he reaches the train station. Gwen's already there, but it won't help, she can't see them, either.

They're not the first to arrive.

***

Ianto has spent the train ride considering what to do. Knowing what's happened does not give him answers on how to fix their situation. He'll send Amy a letter when he and Steven are settled. Perhaps she'll have an idea. Perhaps, he muses sadly, she already knows and nothing can be done. They are ghosts, shadows, forever banished from the lives they once led.

Cardiff sinks into him like a lead weight, dragging his spirits down as they pull into the familiar station. He's escaped before, and he gets yanked back, but this is the last time. One more goodbye for his sister, one more moment at the ruins of the quay, and he will leave everything behind for another shore.

Before they can disembark, two people get on the train at the far end of the carriage. It's strange to be in a position where he recognises someone, but they don't know him. Ianto can't see their guns, but he can tell from the way they walk that they're armed.

He bends over Steven. "We need to separate." Steven shrinks, and Ianto touches his shoulder. "It's all right. There's a ticket counter. Wait there for me. I'll come for you. Go on."

Steven is frightened, but he gets up from his seat and takes the backpack with him, half their funds carefully hidden inside. He walks right past the pair with the guns. The woman gives him a bit of a smile, but it's distant, like she smiles at children every time she sees them. She probably does. Ianto waits for him to exit the carriage before he makes a small show of getting his own bag.

His heart is in his throat. But Martha knew him, and her new husband met him briefly, and they'll have a hole in their memories where Ianto used to be. Convincing them otherwise will be as impossible as convincing Alice. He'll walk by them unnoticed, and never see either one again.

As he stands to go around them, nodding pleasantly, there's a firm hand on his arm. "Lloyd Fellowes?"

He only freezes for a moment, but the moment is long enough. "Sorry, no," he says, as the hand clamps down.

Martha's smile is gone. He remembers her smiles, her coy questions and the way she quietly filled the spaces in the Hub. He wants her to remember him. Her stare is hazy, like she's trying to punch through fog as she says, "Sharky would like to have a word with you."

Sharky? "I paid my loan back. He's nothing to do with me now."

Mickey's voice is quieter. "He says you've caused trouble for the local immigrant population."

"I'm not an alien. Check my DNA." God, would that work? "Please, Martha. Check my DNA."

Mickey looks over to her. "Sharky said he was psychic. Got the dampeners?"

Martha is already digging through the pack on her hip, pulling out a pair of small earbuds which she and her husband slip on without ever letting Ianto loose. He could still break away. He doesn't want to hurt either one, though, and he really doesn't want to be shot. And Steven will be waiting at the ticket counter.

He lets them lead him away. There's more room to manoeuvre outside, and he might be able to make an escape among the bustle of other travellers. They won't want to cause a scene.

Martha closes her pack with a loud snap.

***

There are people everywhere at the station at this time of day, and Gwen has no idea where or how to look. This is Jack's mad quest, brought on by Albert's silly notion, but she can't refuse Jack and never could. Ianto is dead. Steven is dead. She has been to both graves, watched her friend's coffin be lowered into the ground, she has mourned, and she has moved on, and if this is what it takes for Jack to finally do the same, she'll help him.

This is the third train from London today. They may not have come here. They may have gone somewhere else entirely, or walked right past her.

Jack said the Mr Copper Foundation has hundreds of names, but that can't be right. There can't be that many people returned from the dead with no-one to see them. She would have known. Surely they would have known. She can't allow herself to think coincidences make up a pattern. Many people share a birthday with Rhiannon Davies, and there's no reason to think Nathan Goodwin is the same man who tried to hack into Mainframe, and even if he is, too many people try and fail to do that all the time.

But Jack is starting to believe with a childlike faith. After all they've been through, it's enough to break her heart.

A little boy is standing at the ticket counter alone. He looks nothing like the blond child in Alice's photographs. Gwen finds herself wanting to look away from him, wanting to pass on.

There's a train emitting the last of her passengers, and unexpectedly, Martha and Mickey are leading someone out in that way they've developed. Don't frighten the civilians, no dangerous alien to see here. She feels the familiar smile slide over her face and the child slips out of her mind like grains of sand.

As she approaches them, she sees Jack coming from the far end of the platform. She shakes her head so he can see: no luck. His shoulders fall. She wishes he had never let himself hope.

At least Martha is here. He's happier when she's near, for all the bad memories they share.

"Do you two need any help? Haven't seen you in town for a while."

"Thanks, no," says Martha. "Just doing a quick retrieval."

"Better stay back," Mickey says. "This one's psychic. He's been pulling thoughts from our heads."

Gwen's eyes pass over the man in their custody. He's plain, and so unremarkable she almost hesitates, because she's had training on this, she knows how to get a description. He's watching her, but he's not speaking nor moving a muscle, and her gaze passes off him again. She's getting a headache. This day, this whole mad hunt, it's all been too long. She turns away. There's a child standing at the ticket counter, watching them.

She frowns again.

***

Later, Martha will remember the day in still-shots of sepiatone.

Cardiff is grey, threatening more rain. She's getting a headache from the barometric pressure that she can feel in her sinuses. One click, and she's turning her head to Mickey, watching him restrain their catch, but carefully. Some aliens look and act too human, and they've been caught out before.

Another click, and Gwen is there, although neither of them called ahead. Martha is full of memories now, from her brief, mad time in Cardiff when their friends were still alive, or in Owen's case, not entirely dead. Grief wells hard inside of her, too much sorrow from too many events the world doesn't know about, or can't remember, or wants to forget, and they few, they absolutely miserable few, they carry those memories because someone should.

Jack is suddenly at the end of the platform, walking towards them, and he's a pile of memories she wants to forget but can't. Each step closer, and it's another reel from her life: Utopia, Japan, Switzerland, and he carries even more lost dreams than she does.

Click. The prisoner says, "Sorry," and he twists out of Mickey's grip and punches him. Mickey ducks and catches the blow on his shoulder instead, but the man is free. They're armed, he won't get far. As if he knows this, he comes for Martha.

Gwen's gun is out. Mickey's is out a moment later. In the closing gap, she can hear the click-snap of the safety on Jack's antique. She's safer than the prisoner can ever know, and she's calm to his fluster.

Click, and she's bringing her own arms into a sledge, keeping him from her gun. Click, and he's already snapped the quick-release on her pouch and he is falling to a crouch before the moment of hesitation ends for the others now that he's no longer a threat to Martha.

Click, and he's pushed off with his feet from the ground, hands scrabbling in her pouch. She doesn't keep much in there, no weapons, just some basic items that come in handy in her new line of work. The pouch on the other side is her first aid kit, and for half a click, she pictures him digging for plasters.

Click, there's the glint of light from no light source, shining on a key. Martha's heart skips; it's the only thing in her pouch worth taking, and if this alien knows it, he's a much larger threat then she anticipated.

He wads up the string and throws it. The next click is the retort of one of their guns, no telling which one, and a bloom of blood. The throw lands by a little boy, who is watching them, frightened. He picks up the key. Click. Martha goes to him, while Mickey and Gwen are subduing the prisoner again. Jack has broken into a run, his boots making sharp noises on the platform.

"Wait!" Jack's shout echoes through the silent film. Click.

Martha is almost there, and the child looks at the string she uses as a necklace when she needs not to be seen. "That's mine," she says, as gently as she can. Before she can take it back, the boy slips it over his head. She curses, expecting him to disappear.

Instead, he changes, strangely, subtly. Features she hadn't noticed come into sharp view. It's the same boy, and it isn't.

Click.

Jack is beside her, beside the child, holding him and weeping. He tells Martha, "Go. Help him," and he's nodding at the bleeding figure on the platform. She thinks Jack means for her to help Mickey, because they've drawn a lot of attention now, but Jack is digging into his own pocket. He pulls out a key that matches hers, and presses it into her hand as he holds the child.

This whole day has been like mist, but whatever Jack's looking at, he sees clearly now, and even as he patters kisses into the boy's blond hair, his eyes are focused on the prisoner.

Martha goes back to them, back to her husband and her friend and the man bleeding out, and she slips the chain over his neck.

Click.

***  
Epilogue  
***

Technically, Martha lost her registration a year ago, due to that unfortunate run-in with the Judoon. The medicine she practises is off-the-cuff, strictly first aid and emergency treatment only. The lack of paperwork doesn't mean she's not still good at it. Ianto's alive when they reach the hospital, and they all wait outside during his surgery, unable to go in, to ask.

Jack spends the time on the phone with Alice. There's lots of shouting. There are some tears. Steven is still wearing Martha's key, one perception filter cancelling out the other like a red glass over a hidden message that was in plain sight all the time. He talks to his mum. There are more tears. Jack never, ever takes a hand off Steven, his shoulder, his hand, his arm, like he doesn't want to let go, and there isn't one person in the room to blame him.

These slow hours are like living inside glass, inside a crystal diorama of a life: here they are forever, frozen in their worry, unravelling explanations that don't make sense to anyone who hasn't seen the end of the universe, clinging to bodies, hands, friends. Waiting.

The crystal cracks with a new sound like a bell, the ring of Martha's mobile phone.

The voice on the other end is new, and young, and she still loves him and always will, as he says, "Amy tells me there's been a small problem?"

***

His eyes peep open, but there's too much light. He closes them again.

"Hey, no sleeping on the job," he hears in a stern tone, and his eyes open again. Jack is there, looking at him. Seeing him. Smiling, with worry gracing his features, and then Ianto has his own worries back.

A dry, dusty throat strangles him as he grinds out, "Where's – " and Steven is piling into his side, the uninjured side where he wasn't shot but does have an IV line, and it doesn't matter. Steven's all right, the TARDIS key safely around his neck. Ianto's hand comes up, painfully, to his own neck. He feels another key.

Jack sits down beside him, holding his hand. Around him, Ianto can see things more clearly now. Flowers cover every flat surface. As he heals, more will arrive and he will read the cards over and over until they are dog-eared in his hands. He will keep the cards for as long as he lives, these small reminders with his real name written down in ink: from Gwen, from Martha and Mickey, from Amy and her husband, from Richard, even from Sally (she has taken her old name back, it suits her best, Ianto thinks) and the others from Amy's Friends. There's an enormous bouquet from Alice. Well-wishes and good thoughts, and gratitude from those who are getting a visit from the man in the blue box, Ianto will treasure each one. This is the last legacy of the crack, the last gift of the TARDIS explosion. Amy dreamed the universe back, and now there are a thousand homecomings waiting to happen.

Ianto hugs Steven close to him, and his smile matches the one he sees on Jack's face.

Nine-hundred ninety-eight to go.

***  
The End  
***

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My three favorite words are "I liked this." :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Suspend](https://archiveofourown.org/works/547751) by [Eldabe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eldabe/pseuds/Eldabe)




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